News | IGB

2 November 2022

Climate change: More algae and fewer aquatic plants promote methane emissions

A Chinese team, in collaboration with IGB researcher Sabine Hilt, has shown in a large mesocosm experiment how heat waves, nutrients and pesticides promote algae growth and cause aquatic plants to dwindle. This shift in plant types may increase the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions from shallow lakes, as Sabine Hilt and Dutch colleagues demonstrated in another mesocosm experiment.

14 October 2022

press release

Improving phosphorus recycling from sewage sludge

Researchers from IGB have investigated which factors promote the formation of vivianite and thus increase the amount of recoverable phosphorus.

26 April 2022

focus

The dynamics of nitrate in catchments

Dörthe Tetzlaff's team combined a mathematical model with field data to analyse the pathways of nitrate in the Demnitzer Mühlenfließ - a typical catchment in the north-eastern German lowlands with mixed landscape use.

1 August 2019

short news

LakeLab: River-lake systems in focus

Aquatic ecosystems suffer disproportionately from anthropogenic pressure and the effects of climate change. According to the EU Water Framework Directive, lakes along river systems in particular are currently in poor ecological condition. How similar are lakes that are more or less strongly connected by rivers and how do algal blooms spread along lake chains? These and other questions are being investigated by an IGB research team led by Stella Berger and Sabine Wollrab together with other partners from remote sensing and landscape ecology.

29 August 2018

short news

Mixotrophic organisms: quite flexible

Ulrike Berninger, Professor of Ecology at the University of Salzburg in Austria, has long been interested in mixotrophic plankton. This refers to the small organisms floating in water that combine the properties of both zooplankton and phytoplankton. Depending on the environmental situation or individual requirements, these unicellular organisms can either take up food particles via phagocytosis or carry out photosynthesis using sunlight.

8 August 2018

short news

Introduction of fish into the LakeLab

Fish are an important element in the food web of lakes. This also applies to the experimental enclosures of the LakeLab. However, in this case, the number of fish must be controlled so that the results from the individual cylinders can be compared with each other. Because fish from the lake repeatedly jump into the enclosures, all fish must first be removed with nets from the cylinders before starting a new experiment. Today, 5 small perch were released into each enclosure for this year's LakeLab experiment.

1 August 2018

insight

LakeLab experiment 2018 started

As energy supplier and stimulus of the internal clock, light is of fundamental importance to plants and animals. This also applies to fish and microscopic organisms in lakes. Like other species, they have adapted to the day-night rhythm during evolution. But what happens if a lake is illuminated by artificial lighting at night, or if not enough light penetrates into the water during the day? These questions are examined during this year's summer experiment at the Lake Lab.

21 March 2017

short news

From Arctic to the Mediterranean

Lakes, rivers, estuaries and oceans are closely connected. Despite this, aquatic research is still divided in marine and freshwater sciences. Now scientists from 19 leading research institutes and universities and two enterprises from 12 countries across Europe aim to change this and have joined forces in the project “AQUACOSM - Network of Leading European AQUAtic MesoCOSM Facilities Connecting Mountains to Oceans from the Arctic to the Mediterranean”. The network will perform the first systematic large-scale experiments in both freshwater and marine ecosystems.

31 August 2016

insight

At night all researchers are grey

Throughout the LakeLab experiment 2016 samples are regularly taken during day and night. For example, the team of IGB scientist Gabriel Singer gets out once a week shortly before dawn. They focus on aquatic bacteria which are responsible for the decomposition of organic material.

10 August 2015

insight

"As a light physicist I have until now mostly worked in darkened and sterile laboratories"

After returning from his postdoctoral residency at the University of Brisbane in Australia, Andreas Jechow visited by chance the Lake Stechlin Information Center in 2012. There he saw a scale model of the LakeLab and was immediately fascinated by the research platform and the concept behind it. Now, three years later he is part of the LakeLab team and studies the light regimes in the mesocosms.